Lewis Hamilton was left stranded in 10th on the grid for the Las Vegas GP after his previously quick Mercedes W15 “started snapping away” in the crucial Q3 session.
However he lost his first run in Q3 with a trip up an escape road and his second with an oversteering moment. He failed to set a flying lap time and thus had to settle for 10th while Russell took pole.
“I didn’t do the job,” he said. “The car felt different in Q3, and stability was not there for some reason. I’d had it in all the other sessions. But ultimately I just didn’t put the laps together.
“I mean, the tyres were difficult. That’s why we did a prep lap. And I think that was the wrong call to do a prep lap on my side. And then it kind of domino-effected from there.”
Hamilton admitted that the team doesn’t know why the W15 is working so well in Las Vegas.
“We think it’s tyres, but we don’t know why we’re fast this weekend,” he said. “It must be something to do with temperatures.
“It has been really good up until then. And obviously you saw my pace, and then just as it got to Q3, it started snapping away.”
Asked if losing a chance at pole in one of his final races with Mercedes was a stinger he said: “Not really. I feel great, to be honest. I wish I was on pole. George is on pole.
“It’s great for the team. It’s not a stinger. Move forwards. I’ve got three shots, three pops at it, two more pops in the next races, and see how that goes. The good thing is, I’ve got pace.”
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin admitted that the race will be a step into the unknown.
“We’ve had a fast car all weekend and there was a real possibility of us locking out the front row,” he said. “It was a tricky session, and George did a great job to take pole position.
“Lewis had shown fantastic speed throughout, and was unlucky to have issues on both his laps in Q3. Unfortunately, that left him P10 for tomorrow.
“The car has been working really well on a single lap. That has been the case from the first laps of FP1 all the way through to the final lap of Q3. However, it’s a lot harder to read where we will be on long run pace.
“The graining caused by the cool temperature is dominating the degradation and because some pushed early in their runs in FP2, whilst others managed their tyres, it’s hard to know where everything will fall out tomorrow.”
